Facebook was accused of fueling and amplifying hate speech and violence against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority for many years, resulting in their dehumanisation, persecution and murder.

A primary source of information for many people in Myanmar, Facebook effectively served as the internet for a large portion of the population. It also became a platform for spreading anti-Rohingya sentiment in events leading up and during the 2017 genocide against the Rohingya people. 

Designed to maximise user engagement, Facebook's algorithms were seen to have played a significant role in amplifying misinformation and disinformation and hate speech, escalating into  violence which saw thousands killed, nearly 900,000 displaced, villages burned and women and girls brutally raped.

As one internal Facebook document stated, "our recommendation systems grow the problem" of extremism. The algorithms interpreted engagement with anti-Rohingya content, such as using "sticker packs" meant to counter hate speech, as positive signals and further boosted the visibility of harmful posts.

Facebook also had very few Burmese-speaking content moderators, with only one based in Dublin in 2014 to monitor posts from 1.2 million users in Myanmar at the time. Even by 2018, the company had only onboarded 99 Myanmar language moderators to monitor the posts of the country's estimated 20 million Facebook users. 

Internal documents showed action was only taken against approximately 2 percent of hate speech on the platform.

Activists argue that Facebook owner Meta should be held accountable for its role in the atrocities and provide remedies for those affected by its policies and practices.

Ultimately, the company's prioritisation of engagement and profit over user safety was seen as a key factor in its failure to moderate content effectively.